Goodnight Garden
by darjeelinte
Summary: From his dumbest mistake, Sasuke finds himself in the care of someone he least expected. Hinata doesn't mind in the slightest, she thinks.


**AN:** Hello there I'm gonna be writing a sasuhina fic!

This fic is largely and heavily inspired by Blind Faith by fyd818 and My One In A Million by Renoa Heartilly as those are honestly my favorite fics.

Check them out they're still around! They're both so well written that I wanted to try my hand at writing again. My previous style was so lengthy and just, I didn't feel it as much as I do now. My biggest issues is over-complicating things and I try through a lot of edits to refine and shorten it down so I don't sound too pompous.

Please be patient with me my writing skills are subpar to my drawing ones lol. I'm a bit rusty with my knowledge of Naruto lore mostly on Sasuke's part (with the Rinnegan/Susanoo/etc) so if there any inconsistencies with the info I write down please, please comment I hate being inaccurate. I'm sorry ahead of time bc some mistakes I don't catch after I reread them.

This will be told in 3rd POV from either Sasuke and Hinata and sometimes both in one chapter! I love writing about their characters hopefully I get them right!

I will say that I am a very busy college student so I'll probably update at the most inopportune times and edit my stories rather heavily until they're to my liking. This is also a Canon Divergence, where Sasuke doesn't leave the village and does get an arm back. This involves the aftermath.

Hopefully, you'll like my story! Please enjoy!

* * *

Sasuke had honestly thought that the light he had seen had truly been the end of the tunnel before he ascended, or descended, to his predisposed death but really it had just been an explosive tag.

What a joke, to be done in with such a juvenile thing, exploding to bits and pieces due to a misstep—a lapse of consciousness. Explosive tags were the least effective and cheapest attacks, they were like toy firecrackers to him and yet he had been downed by them in one go…

It was laughable as because only months ago Sasuke had bested shinobi twice his age—no older than that—was pitted against reanimated corpses of people that should stay deceased and in their caskets whilst defeating an alien that had wanted to obliterate everything and everyone in her path. All while saving the planet and having a post-reunion with his estranged teammates. And those were only the recent things he accomplished during the Fourth War.

If his brother could have seen him now, making such an idiotic action he would have resurrected himself back from the dead just to laugh at his rookie mistake.

Sasuke should be seeing Itachi anytime now as the last thing he had seen was the explosion of flashing and the eruption of sound and movement making the world go oddly silent. So why wasn't he dead?

It was like a curtain was parted then, the warmth of sunbeams on his face when he finally opened his eyes. Maybe there was a curtain that had actually parted, it explained why his exposed skin was warmed over and bypassing the chill of the room. Yet he couldn't see anything from the bandages looped around his head and he shut his eyes from the abrupt ache that was being seared into his corneas. His chest was bounded in gauze, too snugly and making the severity of his injuries known as he scratched at, picking.

He never did like sunrises or the sun in general as he shifted away from the general direction of the window, his body somewhat uncooperative and sluggish.

He wondered exactly how many meds they had pumped into him to have an overview in the notions of dying and thereafter, probably an insurmountable amount of them. He hadn't thought of dying in a long time, too hellbent on killing his brother to think of dying off himself.

He brushes the thought aside, it wouldn't do him any good to think of such things. Nothing ever good could come from those things.

He lolls his tongue in his mouth and there's the recognizable taste of saline. Better yet they had done it to keep him asleep and induce a coma, not wanting to deal with him since he was a notoriously known evildoer. And an even worst and unwilling patient.

There was the incessant beeping of the machinery, the whirring fans of the overhead A.C. and Sasuke breathed in the smell of standardized disinfectant and his sweat-drenched skin. It was barely spring, still shaking off the persistent winter coldness and he couldn't understand why hospitals were so insistent on the room temperature being so cold. He wrinkled his nose as he sniffed, nose runny from it. The least the wretched place could have done for him was accommodate to make his stay the tiniest bit comfortable. Wasn't that why hospitals prided themselves, in their patient care?

But even then, war criminals simply were war criminals and not many people saw past that affliction of a title.

Testing out his body, he flexed his limbs making sure that he was still physically intact, a singular piece and that he hadn't lost anything too important in the explosion. He would be more than bothered to lose the arm he had recently gotten back, after the constant badgering that Naruto had subjected him to as if getting an appendage back was equivalent to matching friendship bracelets.

To Naruto, it most definitely was from how often he went to high-five or fist bump him with their, 'spanking new and improved hands' as he put it.

Growing an arm still had been one of the most bizarre things to happen to him of his barely eighteen years of being currently alive. Then again there were a lot of things that happened to him that seemed too surreal to be accepted as being real without at least digesting several bottles of alcohol.

Sasuke was frustrated. Did he really sleep through a whole day? It wasn't night time, was it?

It wasn't his first time nor last time being there, his perception of time warping whenever in the hospital and he couldn't even check the time because—dammit he couldn't even see the clock. Not that it mattered since the bandages on his head prevented that too and the hospital clocks always did run time a bit slower so time wouldn't ever be accurate.

His mind drifted as the effects of the medication still lingered, blinking his eyes again and he was so sure it was the morning from how the window was letting in a spring gust along with the daily bustle floors down from him. The conversations was like a grater to his hypersensitive ears, senses sharper and keen because he still couldn't see and it was compensating for that. Still, why was it pitch black then?

He should at least see the sunlight, even if he closed his eyes they would be an orange and veiny red from the passage of light on his eyelids, not this blackness.

His own cynicism gnawed at his stomach, but it could be confused with his hunger. He really was famished but that wouldn't mean he would bow to hospital food, no matter how desperate he could become. His stomach tensed up. Maybe he had been subjected to a life worse than death, worse than subjugated fate, something that festered a sort of unease in him.

Konoha had finally been fed up with his lack of progression over the months, probably plucked out his eyes to experiment with or preserve in a vat and left him to waste away as a handicapped ninja. Left to die in a secluded corner of the hospital with no one to offer wax poetic lines or sympathy (not that he would listen to it or that they would even actually offer.) If anything they could cremate his body, actually that was the only thing he would allow. In no way would he let the council use his body against him even in his own death.

If he was to be handicapped forever he may as well go die right now, a blind shinobi was no good to anyone and would only serve to be discarded. There wasn't much to it.

The heart monitor hiked up when he propped himself up on the pillows, momentum too fast that made his head spin a little, before fumbling at the too many buttons and switches to turn the damn thing off. His fingers grappled out and the machinery let out a colorful array of sounds that had him leaning back from it, all technical jargon that was sending alarms for him not to touch and he could guess that it was to notify the staff that he was finally and fully awake. It was annoying.

He couldn't see what he was doing and it was doing no good whatsoever so he ended up ripping off the jumble of wires that were on him so he could at least run away from the mess he was making. The junction of his arm aches from the withdraw of the needle and the drips that been sustaining that has him woozy, hand lashing out to knock down the IV pole. It clatters and a wetness puddles onto the floor. He slumped onto the bed before pushing off it, feet freezing and now wet.

That's what he was great at, running away and being hounded after, not one to be held accountable. Naruto could clean up after him, that was their resigned destiny in those roles after all.

"You idiot!" The slam of the sliding door signaled that he was going to stay put or he would be at risk for even more bodily harm.

Very rarely did Sakura call him an idiot, those rights were reserved for Naruto exclusively and Sasuke frowned to where he thinks she's at because after all, he was a genius. To be called that was plainly insulting and he hadn't spent all his time studying as a kid to be acknowledged as...that. He found himself marched back to bed and plugged back into the death contraptions despite that he had only made it a few paces to what he assumed was the window.

In reality, it had been the other side of the wall away from his escape route. It didn't stop him from touching the walls and the windowsill on his way back, taking into consideration where they were in case he did need to use them.

There's a sigh. "I agree with you Sakura-chan, he is an idiot. A big one." Kakashi's lazy drawl filtered through his ears and he resisted a groan.

The old team was getting back together in his hospital room, add Naruto and they would be one big happy family. Would be if a bystander didn't pay attention to their constant stepping around one another, careful not to stub their toes on each other. Konoha was anything but bystanders however; eyes that Sasuke could feel whenever he lost his temper or raised his bandaged arm too abruptly.

All of them were readjusting to the aftermath of war and the stretch of peace made battle-wired shinobi so haywire. No wonder they were seeking out his blood.

Truthfully it had been a while since he saw either Sakura and Kakashi.

It was as if the two were the ones that didn't know how to proceed around him despite that they were the only two other people that knew him best. Well, when they were in combat it was then they knew him as they were clueless in social interaction, not that Sasuke was any better in those situations. Naruto made up on their behalf and he couldn't even fault them, Naruto could practically carry a whole conversation with himself.

He could understand Kakashi, the man always seemed to float from inconspicuous places but Sakura was always in a standstill, in one place at one time. It was something that she couldn't change about herself and it made it miserable to see her. He knew it made her miserable too.

Sasuke was kept busy enough, slowly reworking himself and the limits that were put on him.

The ANBU and elite guards that patrolled the area had been called off his back a few days ago and he had a small premonition that Kakashi had been behind it and which meant Naruto had put him up to it.

Which was good for him and everyone else because he had been just about ready to tear apart anybody that approached him too closely in the first days of his 'rehabilitation'.

Kakashi had been chosen as the next Hokage, which had surprised just about everyone including the Sixth himself. No plans of early retirement, Sasuke snarked at when standing in the lines of his inauguration, in crutches and a hospital gown that had been months ago.

Afterward, he had pulled off nuanced changes that made Sasuke think there was some hope if any for the flawed system of the village. Partially because of those changes and Naruto's friendship, Sasuke had stayed back although there was the blatant fact that he was still under strict prohibition and not to be let out of the village without supervision after his apparent spree. Still, Kakashi got on his case more than Tsunade ever had to, seeing that he wasn't her beloved godson.

Weren't they related, her and Naruto, he couldn't recall.

There was a prying pair of hands on him, to where the seals had stuck on and decimated a large portion of his upper chest. He had enough mistrials of katon jutsus to know that it had left his skin burnt, hurting. The bandages had been checked over and then once more again, already changed by herself because no ordinary nurse winded it up so fittingly as Sasuke moved away from her hands when her prodding had become more intrusive. Manicured painted nails, he notes, he wondered if it was green or pink or something that wasn't her colors.

Her hands touched him unnecessarily and too much at once. He knew when she pushed too far when her hyper-fixative nature of trying to fix him made his patience dissolve. For her, there was nothing else for her to fix. If she hadn't been a professional at what she was doing and Naruto and arguably his friend too, he wouldn't have let her touch him so freely.

No way was he letting her touch his eyes without her telling him what exactly happened.

"What happened?" His voice is a croak and wispy like he had also lost his voice, coughing before Sakura gives him a glass of water that's on his bedside. He takes it without so much of a thank you. Sakura is used to it by now and readily waits for him to need her assistance.

Greedily he drinks it, getting a refill from its customary pitcher while Kakashi shuffles around what sounds like the report of the mission in his hands. Unknown to Sasuke, the folder doesn't hide the suspicious pages that are his porno book. From the flicking of the pages and Sakura's exasperation, 'Kakashi-sensei please!' he then knows that Kakashi has his nose in his dirty literature. He had always pondered on what made his old teacher hang onto those books, as any regular person would get bored after rereading it for so long.

It must be a good series if he was that dedicated to it, hearing a traded rumor that he had bought most of the copies to hoard to himself.

By the worn down cover and dog-eared pages Sasuke had seen, he could tell he had an overwhelming love for them, it was probably the one thing Kakashi would die without.

His first grasp at normality, that had been given back to him had ended in such a failure, that much was clear. That could be why Kakashi was being so dismissive…actually no, he was always dismissive.

His mission had been a complicated affair under the guise of an easy task. Sasuke considered it even easier if it involved killing, having no tact in peaceful relations. Kakashi was tormenting him really, sending the least representative person to speak about peace. Did this count as part of his atonement? It better because he wasn't doing it again.

No life-inducing danger just talking, that was all he had to do. Is this what all his training had amounted to in the end?

It hadn't even been a hard one, as he was still officially a genin and had to abide by that useless outdated systemic.

Yet they all knew that his power had no rank and couldn't even begin to be measured, surpassing a majority of all the shinobi and that fact alone made the whole community antsy, of the power contained in one sole boy. In an ironic way, he could understand how Naruto felt when they had been young, defenseless. Yet it was like the two has become entire opposites, swapping out.

Naruto had earned the town's undivided respect and love that he had always yearned for and all Sasuke had gotten was obvious disdain and the turntable of more rumors. Konoha had ceased to be anything to him after what Itachi had told him, a faded image of glory and what had once been his home.

It hadn't helped when immediately after he was let out of hospitalization, he was benched almost indefinitely on the rebuilding team with Naruto for the longest times, no mention of a mission and only restricted sparring that had Sasuke wanting to blast it into annihilation, itching to mutilate what they've been repairing. All part of his therapy Kakashi had told him when he stormed into his office.

He didn't want therapy—it was unpaid labor!

The boy mastered creating a thousand clones while Sasuke selfishly preserved his chakra for himself and did the bare minimum to everyone else and the most in front of Naruto.

Sasuke had preferred it in shambles it fit, just like his real home, perfectly that way. It was a shame they were rebuilding it.

Homes had been destroyed, families and friends torn to the core and here he was detached from it all, not at all regretting what he had done. He had been a factor in the main cause and they all knew it. People were recovering from their losses of the war still bitter and pinned the blame on the most convenient object at the time and that was conveniently him.

Not that he cared what others thought of him, he wasn't Naruto and could care even lesser of what nobodies perceived of him. They only knew him from the glance he sent their way if they stared too long or going over his long list of things he needed to repent for, which weren't promising on paper or in person.

"Well…you were ambushed. The negotiation had been a hoax although the perpetrators have been dealt with," Kakashi rummages through the folder as if he's still going on reading it when Sasuke knows he's thumbing through that book of his. He lets the old pervert be. While Kakashi was the leader of the town now, he would forever be a pervert and it was one thing that remained steadfast about him to when they were children.

Sasuke grunts at him because he wants to be released from the hospital and the people that are in it, keeping him here.

For all this talk about peace between the lands, there were regions that were eager to get back into war right after they had ended one. Sasuke supposed that the absence of violence for long-awaited peace wasn't what shinobi signed up for.

Sasuke frown is ever present. "And the girl?"

It's Sakura that answers him this time. "She's fine. A bit shaken up but otherwise other than chakra depletion and a few bruises, she's fine."

Sasuke didn't know why the girl was shaken up—wasn't she a ninja?—he had been the one tossed around from taking the brute of the attack, meeting death again and spitting back in its face, again. If anything he should be the one that was still in a panic but through the years of facing enemies even worse than him, fear was irrelevant to him now. Nothing much phased him anymore and that in itself should be a worry. It isn't to him, not really.

Sasuke had sink back into the covers and pushed away from them, tired from listening to them give details of a mission he already knew and the prognosis of an injury he had already understood. They seem to notice his aloofness, if was nodding off was anything to go by as they do shut up so the other can say what he wants. Eventually, their patient does, Sasuke's tiredness not all masked, his head barely visible from where he is because he wants them to leave so he can sleep. He had thought if he had fallen asleep they would leave but no.

"That still doesn't explain why I'm now blind," he said and he doesn't have to have his vision to see that they share a look between one another. It's audible from the click of Sakura's heels from one to the other is because she's nervous and the flitting of a page by Kakashi that he wasn't going to be the one to tell him. He had porn to analyze.

As she was a doctor and it was her job, Sakura does reveal what really happened to the most hindering part of him.

"You see…after the explosive had gone off, it left you temporarily blinded—" Before Sasuke can even think of any words to say she goes on quicker."—temporarily! You should have your sight back in a few days."

So he's not blind, that was some reassurance for him. Even if he had been left blind he would have demanded an eye transplant or some other sort of medical magical or secret technique hidden away to regain his sight.

It's then that Kakashi closes his book in one hand and puts it into his back pocket. Not that Sasuke can tell but he's by him, from the smell of nin-dogs and bonito flakes, an interesting and repulsive combination.

"Yet you could go permanently blind if you don't keep that eye in check. How often do those eyes of yours bleed? It is only the left one, right?" His voice sounds wistful as if he missed having his own red eye but Sasuke doubts it. Why should he? It hadn't been his to keep, only borrowed.

If Kakashi was in his position, he would probably be blind and holding a cane in hand, his hair all white from seeing all the ghosts, people he'd let down. Though from how often he had stood at the memorial stone, he had already been long haunted.

His eyes were more of an heirloom that had been handed down the lines, something he had to live with and see his brother—his family and be remembered by them and what happened.

Suddenly he wonders if there's a way to be an Uchiha without their eyes and finds his answer a second later. When he was younger, there had been blind Uchihas that had been treated the same as any other Uchiha. Their clan didn't discriminate. Maybe being blind wouldn't be too bad and he was over exaggerating…

His fingers find the edges of the tape before he lets it fall away. Kakashi crosses his arms, adamant on hearing him out while Sakura watches the exchange although she really should tend to her other patients.

"Only if I use Susanoo. Or if I use too much of my chakra at once," he mutters the last part because he still hasn't regained complete control over that, despite the hours he had spent trying too.

Even if there were no longer people actively breathing down his neck, eager for any slip-ups, he was still under surveillance and couldn't take the risk of summoning anything too catastrophic or he would be indefinitely stripped of what little pride he had left. Still, his body was restless for the overstrain of power and he did sometimes go beyond those boundaries.

Everyone went cross-eyed at that because who could stop him? Besides Naruto, he didn't count.

Saying that out loud made him look weak—he sounded weaker and he winces, wanting to bury himself in bed and go back into that dreamless state of mind.

"Why didn't you tell me that? We could have optimized the damage sooner your eyes are probably more damaged now…" Sakura butts in, hands coming up for his eyes again but Sasuke swats her off.

He's still defensive and drugged up, not wanting anyone anywhere near his eyes. If his eyes had been unclothed, they would be glaring at everything in the room, his frown impossibly deeper on his mouth.

Sakura huffs. "Sasuke-san..." he ponders on when that change had occurred or it was a formality she fell back on particularly stubborn patients.

He knows that if this was Naruto in his place, Sakura would have punched him straight away into oblivion. Unlike Naruto, Sasuke would retaliate if she so much as tried that. Sheer strength only got someone so far and frankly, Sakura couldn't pummel everyone into submission, especially not him.

"Fine, you leave me no choice. Know that I'm only doing this for your own benefits." He is mildly surprised that she hadn't meddled further and left it at that.

Years ago she had been nagging him from his bedside and attempting to feed him apple slices while he sulked. Both of them had been beyond pathetic then, the only difference now was that they had grown up just a little bit, the distance between them was at an arm's length now. Sasuke wasn't intent on closing that distance anytime soon.

"Hokage-sama if he doesn't want treatment from me I have no choice then to recommend him to someone that may be able to help him and reduce the chances of his blindness being permanent. In fact, I think she is better than me, as eyes are her field." Kakashi gives a contemplative noise that she takes as an affirmation. "We'll discuss this further when I've contacted the specialist." He doesn't know if she's talking to him or Kakashi or to the both of them so he just nods at them because they're going, finally.

Now there was nothing inadequate about her, her personal feelings overridden by her far more clinical ones, doing what was what she deemed suitable enough.

It was then she was mindful of her time and that she was running late, going to do her run of medical checkups as she left with the tinkling of what Sasuke pinpoints is due to jewelry and the clack of pointed shoes gifted by that old hag.

There's a moment that cuts through the air, cleanly and deftly before Kakashi harrumphs and pushes off the metal rails of the bed. Sasuke is glad because his body odor was making him dizzy and nauseated, his hunger pains feeding off the smell.

However, he knew that his stomach couldn't handle anything at the moment and he settles for sliding back into bed to sleep, waiting for Kakashi to say his final piece and go. He doesn't want any more visitors and since Naruto hadn't broken down the door it was likely that he was away on a mission. It's a good thing as Sasuke wouldn't hear the end of it when word would get around because it always did.

Uchiha Sasuke blacking out by paper bombs.

That tarnish in his reputation would probably make people less fearful of him, maybe even laugh and point at him openly. He hoped not.

"You heard the nice doctor Sasuke," he doesn't see it but Sasuke has rolled his eyes at him, "you'll have your freedom soon. Of course, we have to go through the usual protocols but you'll be running around chasing Naruto soon enough." It was the other way around and he knew it. Sasuke kicks at an offending wrinkle of the sheet by his foot. It sends a buzz of pain up his leg and he groans, Kakashi apparently amused from how he had chuckled at him. Eventually, his old teacher takes his leave, going on about his responsibilities of the next head of the village as Sasuke breathed out slowly when it was silent and he was by himself.

Alone he turns to the side facing the warmth emitted from the window. He opens his palm and feels his skin heating at the sensation and he thinks this is enough, what he's doing now. What he's doing he has no idea or direction and where he exactly was right now. But it was enough for him.

—

It's then he realizes that he isn't by himself anymore.

He can't see but he can sense it, someone's presence in the room and he lays still as if he was still in a dreamless slumber. Maybe he is, still stuck in that void.

For a brief moment, he thinks it's his mother's spirit coming back for one last goodbye and not to accuse him of his wrongdoings as he takes in the sweetest smell of flowers and a humming that is reminiscent of one of the old folk songs she would sing.

She would sing to herself in the garden to her mountain of flowers, _they have ears you know they love when we talk to them,_ she had told him once in secrecy. It had made him laugh, it had been very funny because they were only flowers but later when his mother wasn't looking he had shared the flowers about his day in a whisper. His mother had hid her smile, acting like she wasn't eavesdropping. He wasn't going to sing to them though he remembers saying, that was too silly.

His mother loved her garden, toiling every day away and letting him help her with it after school. It had made him feel so important, loved whenever his father has been too harsh in training or Itachi had rejected his bugging of playing with him.

She was gone, they all were, yet he and her garden remained. Overrun with weeds and unkempt, forgotten and left back in the past.

Sasuke didn't have the time or strength to go there, never going back to his home. He had no home left, really.

There was a pinprick of melancholy and he made a sound of being awake before he could stop himself, the humming stopping and the person turning to face him. At least he thinks that she is facing him.

"Sasuke-san you're awake. How are you feeling?" They really had grown up from being kids if this was how people were addressing him, by his first name and not his clans. Then again there were some exceptions.

The tentative tone is familiar and he strains his ears because it's so soft-spoken. Or maybe he's just really tired and everything is too quiet or too loud today. That voice, he can place the face of belongs to. Standing there he could picture it, Hyuuga Hinata with a red scarf bundled to her neck as she was sensitive to temperatures as much as he was.

She was also Naruto's ex-girlfriend but that was something he didn't really delve on nor had the knowledge to.

He knew her mostly for the one month that she and Naruto had dated before both had mutually broken it off, from what he had heard among his generation. Naruto never did say what went wrong and Sasuke didn't press him for it, he was never one too.

"...You?" He doesn't want to say her first name because that's what friends do and she's an acquaintance nor her last name because there may still be bad blood between the two clans. Well, him against them now.

Even when she and Naruto dated she had informed him with her first name every time he spoke to her that had him avoiding the two.

Sasuke never was the respectful kind of guy and he wasn't going to start being a friendly one either. If she hadn't known him any better through Naruto she would have taken the word as being rude.

"Yes? What is it Sasuke-san?" There's a crinkle of something plastic against her clothing before she moves over by his side, a rush of water in a container. She must have brought flowers from how the fragrance is even stronger. Sasuke doesn't know what exactly he would do with them. Smell them? Look at them?

Flowers were prettier when a person could smell and see them and without seeing them the smells all blended together, he really couldn't visualize from touch alone. The gesture was evidently lost on Sasuke as he frowned at the bouquet she brought nearer to him.

"What are you doing here? Bringing flowers to my funeral? I'm not dead yet." He wanted to add onto it, why was she here of all places she barely knew him outside of her friends and Naruto. If anything she should be off doing whatever she does, she wasn't useful to him here, no one was. Sasuke misses the confusion on her face from his mean-spirited words that are only directed at himself as she went to lift the flowers out of their cellophane wrappings, the white buds sprouting out towards the sun.

"After…." she searches for the right words before she settles on what won't upset him too badly, "...yesterday, I had to debrief by myself." She takes a pause and breathes out. "Y-You were injured really badly and I had spent nearly all my chakra on you but it still wasn't enough. I didn't want to disturb you because you seemed tired…"

Ah, so that's what this was about. So she felt at fault from that stutter that she had worked so hard to keep out of her voice, trembly from it.

Hinata had been his chaperone to have him leashed and collared, although he had no idea why she had been the choice out of all people. They never had interacted outside of the polite greetings before she'd turn her face away from him and their stilted talks when Naruto had her attention. Which had been always.

That month had been where he kept himself out of trouble not that anyone cared, the townspeople monopolized on the hero and his girlfriend.

He had been a third wheel a long time before they had begun dating but even then it sent a flicker of agitation that Sasuke was being the pest and not Naruto in his head.

"I thought I had bled out all over the forest floor," he changed his position so that the sun isn't blaring in his face, slinging an arm over his already shielded eyes. Hinata makes a noise, perhaps at the discomfort of what he suggested as she had stopped rearranging the flowers she had brought to seat herself in the lone chair between the table and bed. "I was ready to die there."

Naruto wouldn't be too happy at what he was saying and Sasuke squashes the annoying voice that mimics him in the back of his mind.

"I wouldn't let that happen," she said with no ounce of maliciousness that Sasuke takes his arm off his forehead to stare in the general vicinity of where she is.

Sometimes he forgets how much of a good person Hinata is and that's hard to go unnoticed after just one talk with her.

One talk was all it took for her to consider him on good terms with her. Her conclusion was probably if Naruto was his best friend he must be a good person too and he inwardly scoffed at the ridiculousness of it.

It's almost as if she read his mind that has him suspicious if she really is part of the interrogation squad. "Your Naruto's friend after all," she said, softer as if only for his ears to hear although her words certainly aren't. There's a fondness in her voice that is obviously emphasized on Naruto and less on friend.

Either they had gotten back together without anyone knowing or Hinata really had somehow grown out of her childhood shyness. From as far as he could tell, which was worthless without his eyesight, she wasn't distressed whatsoever, being so close to someone that could sneak his hand through her hair and snap her neck so easily. Maybe that's why she was chosen to go with him, that she didn't have that fear that accompanied so many others when they saw him before averting their eyes.

"Besides I would be a bad medic if I let someone die in my care."

In her care? When had he been in her care it had only been one mission.

Also, when had she become a medic, wasn't she a part of the tracking and locating team with those two other boys, Inuzuka and Aburame?

And when has she gotten so friendly with him?

Why the flowers?

It could be that his time-frame had been all wrong and that's why he had all these inconsistencies, yeah that's what it was. Or it could have been that the explosion had been too much for his body to take and had ended up dislodging a chunk of his brain, the one that took care of his memories. It would explain why there were so many memories of his dead family.

"If you knew what was for your own good you would have left me there. My dead body is enough of a peace treaty for those countries. They'd probably celebrate over it." He knows his harsh words shocked her, the outside chatter of children being let out for class obnoxiously loud. Just how much air did those brats' lungs hold?

It's in that silence and that Hinata was there that Sasuke had somehow latched onto a figment of the mission and it's the most useless portion, small talk before they had ambushed. Those had been the words he wanted to say at that time but instead swallowed them in case she wanted to tattletale on him. He didn't see any reason to swallow them back down now.

"That's—that's not true, why else would the Hokage have chosen you if you weren't capable?"

Sasuke shrugs, although his body is wobbly at the joints still and his shoulders flop back down. "I don't know, probably Kakashi's way of getting back at me when I was giving him hell." If he could still see, his eyes would be staring at hers, daring for her to correct him.

He's slightly annoyed at her hesitance or maybe she doesn't want to talk anymore; the school children outside not as deafening as before that save him from his developing headache.

"If you feel guilty for me I don't need it—or an apology. It was my dumbass decision, I should have known that there were traps," he says more to himself that startles her out of her own thinking, peering at him.

Hinata had warned him but he had strode ahead of her, he was the fool.

"Thank you." He nearly laughs and passes it off with a cough as he reaches for wherever the water is, pretending that he didn't feel the push of it into his hand.

"Why are you thanking me? We're ninja we just do what we're told and get paid to do it."

No one had told Sasuke to throw himself in front of Hinata and the payment wouldn't cover all of his hospital billing but she wouldn't argue with him, instead looking at the snowy blooms she had bought from the enthusiasm of Ino.

Sasuke drains his glass and puts it down by himself. It had been a while since someone had thanked him and he pushes at the little gratification it brought to his soul.

However from when he had seen her out in public, Hinata would thank about anyone that sent kindness her way, that was just how she was and Sasuke really couldn't understand it. There was a difference between kindness and generosity and it appeared that she hadn't figured that out yet.

Before they could stew in the atmosphere Sasuke had made the door opened and he knew from the artificial perfume of cherry blossoms and those heels that it was Sakura.

"How's our patient today?" Sakura asks as she has his papers, his medical records from what they could scavenge back when he was a kid to now. Hinata gets up to meet her halfway and they go into a muted conversation although Sasuke can hear everything.

If they wanted to be considerate or confidential they should talk away from him, preferably outside.

"He's awake. He doesn't seem to be in any pain." It's Hinata, voice mellowed and he can tell she's trying so he won't overhear them. Hinata hadn't went to his eyes yet so Sakura paws at his head before he lurches away.

Sasuke inclines his head that would be cocky if they could just see his eyes, it was oozing with it. "I thought I was going to have a specialist. Where is she? It isn't you, is it?"

There's a fleeting moment before Sakura excused herself, putting the papers down on the side table with a slap that brings a grim satisfaction to him if it's anything to go by the conceited smile he has. Then, there are the almost soundless steps of the other woman by him and all he can smell is flowers upon flowers.

He had almost forgotten she was there, her presence was like a ghost's, barely there until it was caught by chance.

"That wasn't nice...Sakura-chan just wants the best for you."

"I'm not really nice if you haven't already noticed." He wasn't going to argue with someone that couldn't confront someone above a louder speaking volume. "All I did was ask where this specialist was. She did say herself there was one." Unless she had lied but he keeps that to himself.

Hinata smiles then, despite that Sasuke couldn't see it. Not yet, anyway.

Whenever Sakura would come back they would give him two options: either to stay in the hospital and be manually checked by all the staff available and who weren't scared to lose their appendages for a pay raise or—

Hinata would take over as his main practitioner and Sasuke would have to deal with her instead.

* * *

**AN:** Okay, so I will try to limit my chapters to 4000-6000 words as I don't want descriptions to drag on. I beta'd this by myself and the help of a few friends so hopefully, I didn't make too many mistakes. Please R&R it really motivates someone lazy like me.

Bonito flakes - also known as katsuobushi, they are dried, fermented, and smoked skipjack tuna or another type of fish. Fun fact one of Sasuke's favorite foods is onigiri + bonito. Just a little fact I put in!

**EDIT:** I somehow ended up with 7000 words...and that was me holding back. Whoops...

Follow me on tumblr at nitto14 . tumblr . com and twitter at nitto_14! Come say hey and scold me for not writing haha!

Thank you and see you (hopefully soon!)


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